


Shepherd

by stardropdream



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The time keeps moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shepherd

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ February 19, 2011.

Himawari was the first to pass on. In April she’d seen healthy enough, perhaps a little slower than she’d been in her youth—but that was understandable, and expected. On his birthday, she and Doumeki were there, as always, and Himawari had smiled at him, her face glowing around her wrinkles as she ducked away a strand of graying hair. Tanpopo chirped from her shoulder, plump and still as vibrantly colored as ever, standing out along the paleness of Himawari’s skin.   
  
Watanuki knew when she’d passed on because, as he sat out on the veranda that cold November morning, he’d watched the little firestorm of a bird fly through his gate and to his outstretched hand. He chirped, quietly, a broken song, and, fluttering his wings once, he curled up in Watanuki’s hand and fell asleep, never to awake again.   
  
Doumeki had confirmed it later that afternoon, after Himawari’s husband called the phone number he’d always known but never called himself. Watanuki had known it was him, although the widower never said a word. Doumeki didn’t have to say much, either, not that Watanuki ever expected him to.   
  
“It’s the way of the world,” he said, eyeing the man beside him, who sat down very slowly, lying his cane on the ground.   
  
He didn’t say anything, and Watanuki let him mourn. He waited until Doumeki had left for the night before he, too, mourned her loss.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Doumeki passed on a few years later, but he held on until the bitter end. It was Doumeki’s granddaughter who came to tell him the news, tears in her eyes as she relayed the news to the young man whom she’d always known and, only until recently, realized had always been the same age—the age she was now.   
  
Watanuki had smiled wanly, thanked her for her time, and sent some food along with her, as a source of comfort for Doumeki’s family.   
  
He lit up the pipe and blew the smoke out towards the waxing moon. Mokona sat beside him, and together they shared the sake—the kind that Doumeki had always liked the most.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Kohane passed on fifteen years after that. She did not come by as often as she’d used to, because she had moved far enough away that it could be an ordeal for a woman her age to come visit him. But she did, whenever she could, and was always so happy whenever they could meet.   
  
She’d come to visit him, and had asked if it would be alright for her to spend the night in the shop with him. He’d allowed it and, in the morning, he hadn’t been surprised—though by no means unresponsive—to seeing her form lying there long after she should have awoken. He had Doumeki’s grandson bring her to the hospital.   
  
That night, Watanuki lit the candles and they flames flickered across the expanse of empty shop rooms.   
  
He didn’t say anything to Maru and Moro, who were the same age as they’d always been, who had remained as unchanging as he had.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
The time slipped away like sand through his fingers.


End file.
